Learning To Fly
by DTLadyZ
Summary: Jack Frost discovers that the Guardians have gained a new member, a girl that, after her untimely death, has been transported through time and space to the North Pole. Jack soon finds that there are many similarities between them, and that he is the only one who can help her find her way in a world she doesn't know. (Rated M for later chapters).
1. Chapter 1

The wind swept across the side of the mountain, ruffling Jack's messy white hair. It never ceased to amaze him how nature still affected him, even though he was technically dead. In turn, of course, he was also skilled at affecting nature.

He noticed something then. It was small and vibrantly colorful, and it stood out against the white snow dusting the rocky surface. It was almost buzzing as it whisked across the cliff, and he realized it was heading straight for him. Its target was obvious, regardless of the fact that the winged thing was no bigger than his fist.

Was it a hummingbird? Hummingbirds could be pink and yellow and blue, couldn't they?

Despite the reality that he was much larger than the creature approaching him, he still tensed as it drew closer. He knew all too well that things that seemed innocuous were rarely as harmless as they appeared to be. Ponds covered in ice being at the top of that list.

The sprite-like creature grew alarmingly close, and he gripped his staff reflexively, ready to use its powers as a weapon, should this microscopic beast prove formidable. The feel of the knotted wood and the sight of the curved portion at the top were comforting. He supposed that the light gray staff would feel icy to a mortal, but being Jack Frost, and all that entailed, meant that the cold never bothered him anymore.

He was now able to make out the more definitive features of the impish being before him, and he relaxed. It was only one of the Tooth's little fairies.

His concern was rekindled when he saw the frantic look on the fairy's face. Though they had succeeded in defeating Pitch, he couldn't bring himself to not be cautious of any dangers that might continue to lurk.

"What is it?" he asked when the fairy landed on his open palm and tugged at the sleeve of his blue sweatshirt.

"You're needed back inside the North Pole," she squeaked, hovering off of his palm as she relayed the message. "There's...there's, uhm..." She twisted her tiny fingers together and bit her lip.

"There's what?" he encouraged. He needed to know. Was someone hurt? He didn't think he could take it, not again. He was grateful that Sandy had turned up, still alive, but thinking his friend dead had been hard enough, especially when he'd been the one who had failed to save the Sandman. Despite discovering that his friend had lived, he still couldn't forgive himself for his failure, though the others, Sandy especially, refused to blame him for any of it.

Tiny, harried breaths fluttered the fairy's chest, and after a moment, she finally spoke, though her vague sentence didn't offer much more than her original statement had. "There's something you need to see."

She flew off without another word.

He stared questioningly after her, expecting her to disappear, but after she had gone twenty feet, she stopped and turned back, motioning for him to follow her. He sighed, complying.

He vaulted himself from the cliff, hovering in the sky for a moment before he shot off like a rocket after the fairy. He didn't need to follow her. He knew how to get back to the North Pole on his own. He trailed behind her, regardless, because he was fond of the little fairy. Even though she looked identical to all the rest, the intense recognition he'd felt upon seeing this particular one told him that this was the sprite he'd saved from Pitch's siege on the Tooth Fairy's palace. The rest of the fairies had been rescued from Pitch's cages later, but the little fairy he was following now was the last one that had escaped the siege, and that was only because Jack and the rest of the Guardians had arrived in time to save her.

Jack followed the fairy through the secret tunnel entrance in the North Pole facility, relying on instinct more than sight as he maneuvered his way through the twists and turns. He kept his tall staff parallel to his body and tucked in close. Wouldn't want it hitting a wall and snapping in half. Again. He was tired of fixing it.

In truth, he didn't actually need the staff to use his powers, but he preferred using it. He couldn't explain why. Maybe it was having something solid, something concrete that he could use to more easily concentrate on channeling his powers.

When he broke through the last part of the tunnel he was right on the colorful little sprite's trail. She didn't look back at him again, even when she had reached the Tooth Fairy's side. Tooth was standing in front of the large globe that dominated the central space in North's main workshop, along with Bunny, Sandy, and North himself.

Jack's suspicion had ignited the second he'd entered the room. North hadn't greeted him with the usual, "Jack, my boy!", and Sandy hadn't smiled and waved. Bunny, who never acknowledged him with much more than a grunt, didn't even glance his way. In fact, none of them did.

"Hey…guys?" Jack asked.

No one responded. Or looked at him. Seeing their inattentiveness now, he wondered how someone had even made the decision to send Tooth's little fairy out to find him. If they had at all. The fairy in question ignoring him now, just as much as his fellow Guardians.

What in the name of the Man in the Moon were they looking at?

He followed their intent gazes to the side of the room. There, there was a door he'd never seen before. It looked heavy, and made of dark gray wood, with an intricately-carved pattern in the front. Jack walked by the others, who didn't say anything or move to stop him. He reached it and laid his hand on the doorknob.

He gasped, jerking his hand away and looking at the other Guardians in shock.

Because of his icy internal temperature, touching anything cold didn't bother him, but because the workshop was warm, he'd noticed immediately that the doorknob was much colder, if not completely frozen—at least from the other side of the door.

Jack turned back to the others. "What's _in_ there?"

Tooth's silvery wings flapped as she hovered off the ground a few inches, opening her mouth and holding up a delicate finger. Words seemed to fail her as she touched back down to the floor and remained silent. North fiddled with one end of his mustache. Bunny crossed his fur-covered arms over his chest and pursed his thin lips as he stared over Jack's head and behind him at the wooden door. Golden images made of sand danced in the air above the Sandman's head, but they fluctuated too fast for Jack to make any sense of them. Though he did think he saw a snowflake amongst the jumbled pictures. Hmm. Must be seeing things.

He was about to repeat his question when North finally answered him. His normally booming voice was soft for once as it carried across the short space to Jack. "In there is a…new Guardian. I _think_," he amended.

Jack's eyes popped wide and his mouth fell open. "_What?_"

North crossed his arms and continued. "Thirty minutes ago, the globe here"—he tapped the gargantuan sphere in question—"opened up and started to glow with bright blue light, in a circle. The circle rotated, spinning faster and faster, until a…girl popped out. We finally coaxed her out of her hiding place under the globe, and she's being hiding in that room over there ever since. She won't talk to us, but she might talk to you, seeing as how you two share certain…traits."

Jack hadn't regained his ability to speak in sentences with more than one word yet. "_Me?_"

Tooth seemed to find her voice then, and she spoke in a gentle cadence. "She hasn't told us how she died, but we think that when she did, she was sent through time to us."

Jack still couldn't utter anything more interesting than his newly-assumed monosyllabic answers. "_How?_"

Tooth touched her finger to her bottom lip. "We're not exactly sure, but nevertheless, she's in there, and she was born a long time ago…. We think that she lived in the same era you did.

Curiosity was now shoving against the shock radiating inside of him, and he turned back to the broad wooden door. Now prepared for the icy temperature of the doorknob, he gripped it and twisted it to the right.

Snow-like air blasted from the other side of the doorway, and Jack stepped inside and pulled the door closed when he saw that the other Guardians had started to shiver. He took a deep, steadying breath before turning towards the room.

There were no lamps or overhead lights inside the gray wood-paneled room, so the only illumination in the space was offered by the large, semi-circle window that dominated the opposite wall.

There was a slender figure standing in front of it.

The petite girl was silhouetted against the light of the morning sky outside the window, and her back was turned toward the room.

She was wearing a dress composed of several shades of ice blue, and the fabric alternated between shimmering like tropical water and glittering like freshly fallen snow. It was floor-length and tight fitting, and made of shiny fabric that slipped and slid over every curve of her small body like a waterfall. The sleeves were edged in sheer white, and were draped off her shoulders, hugging the tops of her arms. A white sheer cape patterned with glittering snowflakes was attached to the back of the sleeves, and it fell to the floor from there, flaring out in a subtle train.

The girl was even _more_ striking than the dress she wore. Her skin was pale white—almost as pale as his own—and her thick white-blonde hair hung in a French braid that was draped over her left shoulder.

"I said I wasn't ready to talk."

He jumped. Her sudden sentence was low and strangely melodic.

And angry. Jack gripped his staff reflexively as the girl's body tensed up. She brought her hands up in front of her, balling them up into fists. After a minute of silence, she relaxed visibly, letting her arms fall back to her sides.

Jack was the one to tense up this time. This girl was obviously holding herself back—but _what_ was she holding back? Just what kind of power did she have, exactly?

Jack cleared this throat. "You weren't ready to talk to the others, but you may want to talk to me." He decided not to mention that talking to beautiful girls wasn't something he'd ever really done, aside from talking to Tooth. "I'm Jack Frost. What's your name?"

For a moment, the girl didn't answer. Then he heard her take a deep breath, and she said, in a quiet voice, "Elsa. But you're wrong. I don't want to talk to you. Please leave."


	2. Chapter 2

He shook his head, then realized she wouldn't have been able to see the motion, because she was still facing the window. He took a few steps forward, and the dark wooden floorboards creaked under his bare feet. "Listen, I know what you're going through. I think I can help you understand what's happening right now."

Elsa snorted. "I doubt that." She laid her delicate hands on the windowsill in front of her, her fingers somehow turning an even lighter shade of white as they clamped down on the wood. "Please leave. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

He let out a quiet chuckle, taking another step forward, despite the instinctive feeling of danger he'd felt at her words. When he'd died and been resurrected by the Man in the Moon, he'd felt utterly alone—full of power and no one to share it with. He didn't want Elsa to feel that way.

He decided to try his luck—or lack thereof so far—by speaking. "Listen, if you just talk to—ˮ

"I said _leave_!"

So fast that Jack wasn't even sure how it happened, he was overcome by jagged spikes of ice, sliding quickly across the wooden floor towards him.

He lifted off the ground quickly, avoiding what would have been a very uncomfortable stabbing. When he spotted Elsa, he saw that she was still in front of the window, but her eyelids were shut tight and her hand was thrown out in front of her, her fingers spread wide, like _she'd_ been the one to create the icy spikes.

Jack suddenly understood exactly what North had meant about he and Elsa sharing certain "traits".

He took a steadying breath as he flew silently across the room to stand between her and the window. "You can't hurt me, Elsa," he murmured.

She jumped, spinning to face him. "How did you"—she was backing away now, her lips quivering—"What _are_—ˮ

She slipped on the bed of ice in front of the spikes.

Jack jumped into action, leaping off the ground as he flew towards her. There was no telling what would happen if she impaled herself on—

But his concern was unwarranted. He touched back down a few feet away, staring at her in shock.

She was levitating.

Okay, so they shared a few more traits than he realized.

Elsa's entire body was tense, her arms locked to her chest and her eyes shut tight. She was horizontal, three feet above the ground and an inch from impaling herself on the glistening points of the extremely sharp spikes.

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She stared wildly around, and it appeared to take her a few minutes to process her new aerial view of the room. Her eyes widened when the realization hit.

And she dropped.

Lucky for her, Jack had already been in motion the minute her eyes had opened. When he'd first started out, he'd discovered his ability to fly on accident. Before it had become second nature to him, he'd learned the hard way that it took concentration when it wasn't acting solely as a defense mechanism.

He'd locked his arms around Elsa's small frame just as her levitation had turned off, and he'd been too focused on saving her to slow his momentum—he grunted as his back slammed against the wall.

They were lying on the floor, pressed against the wall next to the door. Elsa was still enveloped in Jack's arms, a fact he was all too aware of. Her skin was as icy as his own, and surprisingly soft through the thin material of her dress.

Elsa's breathing returned to normal, and soon he could only feel the slight movement of her chest against the makeshift cage of his arms.

The movement stuttered and increased suddenly, and he recognized it as sobbing.

"What's happening to me?" Elsa's voice broke several times during the short sentence.

Jack wasn't sure what to do when Elsa's sobs became audible, so he just held her tighter as she cried herself out.

When she quieted down, she shifted. He released her so she could sit up, trying to keep the frown off of his face that she was no longer in his arms. It was harder than he thought, so he settled for pressing his lips into a line as the two of them arranged themselves against the wall.

Man, how could someone look beautiful even when they'd just been _crying_?

Then she spoke again. It was different this time, much more vulnerable now. It was like a veil had been lifted, blown off in the wake of her intense display of power and her subsequent breakdown. "I'd finally gotten my sister back," she whispered. "She'd found out about my powers by accident, but even after—ˮ

He couldn't stop himself as he interrupted her. "What do you mean, 'discovered your powers'?" Unless Elsa's sister had somehow come through the portal with her, she shouldn't have known anything about her powers. These abilities were given to Guardians _after_ they died, not before.

Without looking, Elsa gestured to the semicircular line of icy spikes still dominating the center of the room. "I was born with my powers, and my sister found out about them much the same way you did." Her voice had grown dead by the end.

Jack was still stuck on the word "born", and all he could say was, "_How?_" The one-word question instantly reminded him of his monosyllabic inquisitions before walking into this room, and he flushed in embarrassment at the thought.

She laughed, still staring at the floor, and he silently thanked the Man in the Moon that the chuckle wasn't directed at the redness in his cheeks, though it _was_ the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard in his life—or death, for that matter.

"I don't know how, but it explained why I was the only one in my family with a hair color this light." She trailed her delicate fingers along her braid, bringing it back over her left shoulder, which was a just inch away from Jack's right side. He found himself following the motion—so much so that he was caught off guard when she looked at him and smiled.

His lips parted in shock, and he was immediately struck with the realization that he hadn't gotten a full look at her face until this moment.

Man, oh man, what a pity that was.

She was absolutely breathtaking. Her lips were a dark shade of rose, and they were currently parted in a particularly captivating smile, showcasing small and straight ivory teeth. Her eyes were big and beautiful, and a dark shade of glacier blue that rivaled the colors in her dress.

Her smiled faltered and those bright blue eyes lighted with confusion.

"What is it?" she asked.

He'd forgotten how openly he was staring at her, and cleared his throat awkwardly, shaking his head. "Nothing. Why don't you keep telling me what happened," he suggested, and immediately wished he hadn't.

All remaining traces of Elsa's smile vanished, and the blue in her eyes grew dark as she looked down at the floor. "Even after that, after I ran away, my baby sister still refused to give up on me. In the end, when _Hans_"—he could see the anger flash in her eyes even though she wasn't looking directly at him—"tried to kill me, she sacrificed herself for me. I was more than lucky that her sacrifice was the act of true love that resurrected her. I don't know what I would have done if she'd died that day."

Jack struggled to find something to say, anything to make that beautiful smile return. His heart lifted when it came back on its own.

"Hans was sent back to his kingdom, and not long after, we were planning my sister's wedding, to the newly-appointed Ice Master, Kristoff." She laughed "Anna had insisted that she wanted a winter theme, but I knew that she just wanted me to be the one to decorate. Naturally, there was some upset in the kingdom that Anna wasn't fulfilling her duty as a princess by marrying a prince, but as queen, I put a stop to those protests immediately. Anna may have made a mistake with her first engagement, but I knew that Kristoff was the right choice for her."

His mouth fell open. Elsa was a _queen_? He had to force the surprise out of his system when he noticed that her face had grown somber again.

"Anna and Kristoff were on their honeymoon, in my cousin's kingdom, when I heard the news. It seemed that Prince Hans had more power than we thought, and he was moving through several kingdoms, destroying everything in his path." Her voice was like a dagger as she said, "With fire."

The shock came back in full force. Not only had Elsa been born with the powers of winter…she'd actually met someone with the power of fire.

Jack had always assumed that the worlds of magic and the mundane were separated by death. Now, he realized, that separation was non-existent.

"In the same message that told me of Han's power, there was a warning. It was suspected that he was on his way to the kingdom Anna and Kristoff were staying in." She bit her lip. "The message had been sealed and sent to me, and I didn't show it to anyone else. I just left. I created a raft out of ice and propelled myself across the ocean." She leaned the side of her face into her hand. "I reached the kingdom when Hans did, in time to save my sister, but apparently not in time to save myself."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, not knowing what else to say.

A fierce smile lit up her face as she glanced up at him. "It's okay. I got to save my sister—and I took Hans down with me."

He lifted his eyebrows and smirked in response. "Well, I want to say I'm surprised, but…." He nodded to the middle of the room, where the icy spikes illustrated he silent half of his statement.

She laughed. "No, I guess you shouldn't be." Then she frowned, her forehead creasing. "How do you deal with this? With being…dead?" She seemed to trip over the last word.

He opened his mouth to answer, then stopped himself. He'd been about to say that his friends—the other Guardians—were helping him deal, and sure, that was true now, but…. In the beginning, it had been something else entirely. He glanced around the room until he found his wooden staff, which had ended up on the floor beside him. He picked it up with his left hand and showed it to Elsa.

"You need to find something to hold onto," he said.

Elsa reached for it tentatively, then rolled it in her hands. "What is it?" she asked, looking up at him again.

Now he was the one to look at the floor. "I died with it."

He felt the light pressure of her hand on his arm, and met her eyes, which were tight with concern.

"How?" she whispered.

A lump formed in his throat, and he knew he didn't want to relay the details of his death out loud.

But he knew he would. Elsa had opened up and told him her story—she deserved to hear his.

He took a deep breath. "I was on a frozen pond with my little sister, but it turned out that it wasn't frozen enough. The ice was cracking underneath her feet, and I had her grab the other end of _that_"—he pointed to his staff, still in Elsa's hands—"and then I swung her to safety. Then, before I could react, I fell through. When I woke up, my hair was white and my eyes were blue, but I had no memory to tell me that I used to have brown eyes and hair. In fact, I didn't have any memories of my human life until recently."

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. Then she rolled her eyes, sighing. "That doesn't seem to cover it, but I can't think of anything else to say."

He shrugged. "Sometimes, that's all there is to say."

She looked down at the wooden staff in her hands, then handed it back to him, looking up at him curiously.

"Something to hold onto?" she asked.

He gave her a small smile and nodded.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling sharply. She stood up so fast that her petite form seemed to blur before his eyes.

When she walked to the left, stopping in front of the door, he got up and followed her. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her—though his shoulder stood a couple of inches taller than hers—and nudged her playfully.

"You ready?" he asked.

She glanced up, and those deep blue eyes were like steel.

"Ready."


	3. Chapter 3

_This feels…odd,_ Elsa thought to herself. _Yes, that blue dress showed a lot more skin than I ever had before, but this…._

She sighed. Times were different now, and she had to accept that.

With Jack Frost around, acceptance might not be so hard.

She blushed.

After she'd accidentally struck Anna with her powers when they were kids, she'd grown up shutting everyone out, because she thought she was protecting them from herself. She hadn't realized that by isolating herself and denying her powers, she was creating a buildup that would—and did—explode one day.

Through all that, she hadn't even been able to let her _sister _in. The thought of letting anyone _else_ in…never entered her mind.

A knock came at the door. It wasn't from someone's hand—it sounded like wood-on-wood.

Jack.

She blushed again. She was going to have to get used to her face having this much color.

And used to the fact that she would never see her sister again. The color in her cheeks faded at the thought. She knew she would have to accept the fact that even though she was living in a different time now, and Anna was technically…dead—it was agonizing to think of that word and her sister's name in the same sentence—she knew she had to realize that she'd finally done it. She'd saved her sister. Hans was dead, and he couldn't hurt them anymore. Anna and Kristoff had probably lived a full and happy life, with plenty of little fast-talking, ice-loving, red-headed and blonde children. She chuckled under her breath.

The tapping of Jack's wooden staff against the outside of the door sounded again, and Elsa took a deep breath before turning away from the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. She would know sooner or later if the outfit she'd conjured would work here or not.

Halfway to the door, she stopped.

"One minute!" she called.

She folded her arms across her chest as she considered Jack's words from earlier that morning. He'd said she needed to find something to hold onto. She'd been back and forth all day about what that "something" should be.

_You could hold onto Jack,_ a surprisingly prominent voice in her head said. _That silky white hair and those frosty blue eyes would definitely be something to wake up to…._

She felt the heat rush back to her cheeks as she realized the implications of her thoughts, and she forced herself to focus. While she couldn't deny her attraction to Jack, she barely knew him. She had no idea what courtships were like in this new age, but she was sure she'd have to get to know him a little more before anything…happened.

And there was that. She'd died without ever knowing the love of a man. What did she know about the inner workings of the bedchamber?

An image of Jack flew into her mind at the same time that a thrill ran through her, and she had the sudden suspicion that her body would know perfectly well what to do.

She cleared her throat and turned back to the task at hand.

Something to hold onto….

Her head snapped up and she spread her hands out in front of her. She knew exactly what she needed to make.

Not being able to deny the inspiration she was getting from Jack, she began to conjure a staff of her own. Hers was made of a lightweight sky-blue ice, glass-smooth and see-through from the bottom to the top, where there was a small and intricately designed snowflake. Every part of the icy scepter was indestructible—after that chandelier incident back in her ice castle, she wasn't taking any chances.

She steeled herself as she walked to the door and pushed it open.

"Ready," she said as she caught sight of Jack, who turned at the sound of her voice.

She struggled to keep the blush out of her cheeks as Jack looked her up and down—he was wearing the exact expression he'd had in her mind when she'd been thinking of…things.

"What do you think?" she asked nervously, gesturing to her clothes with her free hand. "I hope you don't mind me playing off of you. Modeling myself after your friend Tooth seemed a little much."

She'd picked out a sweatshirt in a style nearly identical to Jack's, with a hood and drawstrings, though hers was sky-blue and lacked the white pattern of frost on his.

Though she'd understood his inclination to go barefoot all the time—as she was experiencing that feeling even more, that now she was dead—she hadn't been able to resist conjuring a new pair of shoes. She'd opted for sky-blue ballet flats, which were as transparent as the heels she'd been wearing ten minutes ago.

Taking into mind Jack's coffee-colored pants, she'd created a pair of snow-white shorts of the same material, with the cuffs rolled up twice so they ended a third of the way down her thighs. _They_ were the reason she'd been so apprehensive about walking out the door. The slit in the skirt of her blue dress hadn't shown nearly the amount of leg she was sporting now.

That same amount of skin might be accounting for the way Jack was staring at her now, and the fact that he still hadn't responded to her question. Her fingers automatically went to the braid draped over her left shoulder and she fiddled with it as she waited for his answer.

His gaze trailed from her toes to her head and all the places in between. When his eyes connected with hers, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"It's perfect." A curious light blended with ice-blue of his eyes as he nodded down at her staff. "Found that 'something' I told you about?" It didn't sound like a question, and Elsa could hear the amusement behind it. Her lips twitched in response as she handed it to him.

His eyebrows shot upward once he was holding it with both hands. Elsa guessed it was from experiencing the cloud-like weight of the staff.

Then Jack's eyes tightened slightly, and she frowned in confusion when she gathered that he was looking at a spot just above the bottom of the staff.

Then he smiled up at her.

"That's beautiful," he said quietly.

Her confusion flared as she stared back at him. He tilted his head to the side and lifted the staff up, twisting it in his hands so she could see what he was talking about.

When she saw it, a tear rolled down her cheek of its own accord.

On the bottom of the scepter, just above the rim, there was a single word engraved in elegant white script that stood out against the smooth blue backdrop.

That word was _Anna_.

She let out a surprised sigh. "I didn't even know I put that on there."

Jack shrugged, still smiling, and handed her the staff. "You needed something to hold onto. Your brain said 'scepter', but your heart said 'Anna'."

She squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment before looking up at him, new tears at the corners of her eyes.

"Our sisters shouldn't have had to grow up without us," she whispered.

Then his arms were around her, and she was burying her face into his shoulder.

"No, they shouldn't have," he murmured into her hair. She could hear the way his voice broke, and she tightened her grip on the front of his sweatshirt automatically. He pulled her even closer in response.

"Ahem."

Elsa jumped, she and Jack springing apart. She quickly wiped the moisture from her eyes as she focused on the source of the new sound.

It was Bunny. His fur-covered frame stood much taller than hers, even though he was standing five feet away from her, in front of the globe. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was wearing a raised eyebrow and a smirk as he looked back and forth between her and Jack.

He leaned back against the globe and crossed one foot over the other. Elsa found that his voice was low and Australian as he said, "Am I interrupting something?"

Without missing a beat, Jack said, "As far as I'm concerned, you're always interrupting something."

Bunny just let out a low chuckle and walked away.

Elsa quirked an eyebrow. "Your friend seems…nice."

Jack laughed. "I wouldn't call Bunny a friend. The Guardians are like my family, and Bunny is…the big brother I never wanted."

Her lips twitched in a half-smile, but she couldn't stop herself from asking her next question. "And what about Tooth?"

He turned to face her full-on, fixing her with a curious stare. "Why do you want to know?"

Her lips shrank into a pucker and her eyes went a little wide. She kept her voice level as she said, "No reason."

His eyes tightened a little, but one corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. "Tooth is like a big sister to me."

She had to force her smile to stay small as she nodded. "That's nice."

His smirk grew more defined. "Mhmm."

She stood up straighter and lifted her chin. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He chuckled. "I'm sure." He set the base of his staff on the floor and leaned against it. "Are you ready?"

She looked at him curiously. "For what?"

He narrowed his eyes playfully at her and leaned forward. Elsa felt a flicker of shock when she felt herself lean forward in response. She held her breath as she waited for him to answer her question. When he did, she felt his cool breath on her face, and was not surprised to find that it smelled like freshly-fallen snow. It was intoxicating.

"I'm going to teach you how to fly."


	4. Chapter 4

Elsa took a deep breath as she stepped to the edge of the cliff. Snow blanketed the area, but it did nothing to mask the sheer drop-off just an inch away from her toes. She suddenly knew exactly how Anna had felt. Her sister had told her what it had been like, looking over the side of a cliff with a two hundred foot drop and knowing you were about to leap off the edge.

Not to mention _she'd_ been the one to create the snow monster that had driven Anna and Kristoff to that cliff in the first place….

_Stop it, Elsa. They forgave you for that._

And, in all fairness, Anna _had_ been the one to throw the first snowball.

She smiled, glad it was getting easier to think of her sister. Maybe one day she'd be able to tell Jack all of the stories about Anna.

Jack, who was still waiting for her at the bottom of the cliff.

She peered over the edge again. She couldn't see the snow-covered ground below, but she knew it was there beneath the dense fog swirling above it.

A thought occurred to her, and she gave the mist more scrutiny. It didn't really look like it was supposed to be there, and from what Young Boy Winter down there had told her about his powers, _he_ was probably the one creating the translucent white cloud.

Taunting her.

She wasn't having that. She flashed a wicked grin as she gripped her ice staff and turned it sideways, holding it in front of her as she prepared to jump.

Jack had said that when she'd levitated earlier, it had been acting solely as her body's defense mechanism. She'd understood —and clearly felt—that it had not been a result of her concentration at all. Going from that to something that required her _total_ concentration seemed…tricky.

She stepped closer to the edge, wrapping her toes around the dubious precipice. She shut her eyes and took a shaky breath, hugging her staff close to her chest.

It was then that she heard a sound, one that made her eyes snap open. She squinted over the side of the cliff and searched the open space for the source.

She couldn't see it yet, but the peculiar noise was growing more pronounced, so she assumed that whatever was causing it was drawing closer.

Then she _did_ see it, and a slow smile spread across her face.

It was a snowflake—much like the one perched on top of her staff, though this one was twice as intricate. It was floating upwards, and emitting a jagged whisper as it zipped through the air, accounting for the noise she'd been hearing.

When it stopped about two feet in front of her face, it burst into a shower of ice crystals. A single sentence drifted out of the snowy curtain, and her lips curved up even more when she recognized the voice as Jack's.

"If I wasn't immortal, I'd be aged a hundred years by now," he teased.

Her lips puckered and her eyes narrowed into slits. She turned her staff on its end, gripping it with her left hand.

She leapt off the edge.

It was absolutely exhilarating. The feeling of free-falling through open air was something she'd never experienced before this, and that was a shame. She wished she'd been able to feel this level of ecstasy a _lot_ sooner.

The dense fog that separated her from Jack was approaching fast, and Elsa was suddenly reminded of the most important part of flying.

Stopping.

As soon as she'd thought of it, though, her body instinctively started to slow.

But not enough.

She hadn't realized how much speed she'd been gaining until she plummeted through the snowy mist, knowing that she wouldn't be able to stop before she hit the ground.

Her scream ended with a grunt as she slammed into Jack, shoving him to the ground with the full force of their collision. He was flattened into a Jack-Frost-shaped depression in the powdery snow.

"I'm sorry!" Elsa shouted immediately, trying to stay calm, even though she was all too aware of the fact that she was currently sitting on his waist, with her knees pressed into the snow on either side of him.

He chuckled. "I'm not."

Her cheeks flushed when she saw the sudden intensity in his eyes. He was looking at her the same way he had when he'd seen her new wardrobe, though this time…he looked like he was going to do something about it.

She beat him to the punch.

Between one heartbeat and the next, she was kissing him. She was pressed completely against him, her torso and chest molded to his, and his arms were making sure she stayed there. One hand was pressed between her shoulder blades, while the other was wound into her hair.

The kiss was a snowstorm, and all she could see was Frost.

She didn't want it to stop, and she told him so with her lips. His mouth answered with something to the same effect.

She wanted to do more than just kiss him. She wanted to get him out of those ice-edged clothes and—

"Hey, Elsa! Why are you kissing a guy with white hair?" a voice asked, sounding unusually chipper despite the winter temperatures of the mountain range.

Shock whipped through Elsa's body like a bolt of lightning, forcing her to tear her lips free of Jack's as the realization interrupted the moment of bliss.

Her mouth fell open when her eyes confirmed what she already knew.

"_Olaf?_"

Five feet away, the little snowman was indeed there, his eyes wide and twinkling, his single-toothed mouth spread in an oblivious smile. Only Olaf would find two people in the middle of a less-than-appropriate embrace and ask why the boy's hair was white.

Elsa looked down at the boy in question. She then realized she was still sitting on him—and that they were no longer alone. She awkwardly disentangled herself from him and stood up. Jack pursed his lips and did the same.

When he turned toward Olaf, his eyebrows rocketed skyward and he looked questioningly at Elsa. She bit her lip and stared back.

Jack looked back at the little snowman. "Your name is Olaf?"

Olaf, still grinning, nodded slowly and spread his thin wooden stick-arms wide. "And you are…?"

Jack began to talk in low tones out of the side of his mouth, though Olaf showed no sign of caring. "Elsa, why is the snowman talking…and how does he know your name?"

Olaf's egg-shaped head snapped up, despite his apparent lack of interest. He grinned and said, "She built me."

Jack's eyes widened. He crossed his arms over his chest and started to pace back and forth between Elsa and Olaf. "You have more power than I thought. I'll have to think of different challenges for you, so we can see just how high your limits are."

At that, Elsa stumbled headfirst out of her tangled thoughts and shook her head, causing Jack to stop pacing and look at her. "Believe me, I've tested my limits plenty, but I'm more concerned with how Olaf_ got here_."

Jack's eyebrows twitched downward. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that I conjured Olaf when I was still _alive_."

Jack gaped at her in shock for a long moment.

Finally, he spoke. "We need to talk to the other Guardians."

Jack sat beside Elsa on the bench in front of one of the windows in North's workshop. Beyond the glass, the sun was setting, casting an orange glow on the snowy mountainside, but no one in the room was paying any attention to the view at the moment.

Well, no one but Olaf.

"You see, this is the kind of thing I like to see in winter. All that white snow needs more _sun_," he chimed from where he stood on the bench on Elsa's other side. His own personal little cloud puffed out a steady stream of snow above his head—something Jack hadn't noticed until they'd gotten away from the bottom of the cliff. The little snowman had three large black coal buttons, a bulbous carrot nose, sticks for arms, and a tangle of more twigs that made up his hair. He looked like something Elsa and her sister might have built as kids.

The other four Guardians were arranged around the globe. Bunny was leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face. North was in a similar position next to him, though he was staring at the ceiling thoughtfully and combing his beard with his fingers. Tooth was sitting on top of the globe, her wings fluttering at a nervous pace. Sandy was pacing back and forth in front of North and Bunny, several images flashing above his golden hair as he considered the possibilities.

Elsa spoke suddenly, breaking the silence and making everyone jump.

"I think it's safe to assume that, because I conjured Olaf, he came through the portal with me when I died," she said, fiddling with the end of her braid. "My only question is…what else got through?"

Out of nowhere, an excited smile lit up her face, and Jack eyed her curiously as she turned toward him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"If _all_ of my magic travelled with me, then there's something I want to show you."


	5. Chapter 5

Jack trailed behind Elsa as the two of them flew beside the mountains. He found himself switching back and forth between marveling at how well she was flying and wishing they were back in the position they'd been in before Olaf had come knocking.

Not that he blamed the little snowman, he just imagined that story ending a little…differently.

He had no idea what Elsa was taking him to see. All he knew was that she had only asked Olaf where he had ended up before finding them. He'd said that he'd ended up at the bottom of the tallest mountain in the range, after coming through the portal. Elsa had asked Jack which direction the mountain was in, to which he'd responded, "North."

Elsa had chuckled, rolled her eyes, and muttered, "Of course."

Jack had smirked and given her a questioning look, but she'd only smile wider and shaken her head.

And, man, did that smile make him forget everything.

Like where he was.

He came to a jolting stop, narrowly avoiding colliding with Elsa's immobile form. Earlier, she'd had the excuse of not seeing him through the dense fog, so there was no way she could have avoided knocking him down. His only excuse would have been that he'd been too busy daydreaming about her to pay attention.

She was hovering at the base of the northernmost mountain of the range, holding remarkably still for being two feet off the ground. She was staring up at the top of the mountain, and he noticed that her braid had fallen between her shoulder blades. He resisted the urge to put it back where it belonged.

Then he scoffed under his breath. Holding back would mean acting like that kiss had never happened, and the looks he kept trading with Elsa told him that neither of them wanted that.

He reached out and slid the white-blonde braid back over Elsa's slender shoulder, earning him another breathtakingly white smile. Her snowy skin stood in surprisingly attractive contrast to the blush in her cheeks.

"So," he said. "What do you want to show me?"

She bit her lip and pointed up. Jack raised an eyebrow but followed the direction she was indicating, up to the top of the mountain.

His jaw dropped when he saw it. How something so large and so elaborate could have traveled through time and space, intact, and perfectly grafted itself to the summit of a gargantuan mountain…. There were no words.

"You _conjured_—" he began to ask Elsa.

She wasn't paying attention. While he'd been marveling at her creation, she'd been moving towards it. He chuckled quietly and followed her.

It was an ice castle. The opulent and multi-tiered palace had a blue color spectrum that rivaled the dress Elsa had been wearing when he'd first seen her. A set of glass-smooth stairs curved in a low arch from the massive double doors to the snowy mountainside in front of it. Before Jack reached the bottom of the steps, Elsa was already at the top. He flitted up the stairs and reached her side just as she held up one arm and flicked her wrist.

The double doors slid open.

The inside was even more spectacular than the exterior. A grand staircase was split between both sides of the room, curving along each wall. In between the two, there was an elaborate fountain, the blooming flower-like frozen water reflecting the light from the translucent ceiling and projecting it around the entire room.

"How long did it take you to build this?" he asked. He marveled at the way his words gently echoed around the room.

"About three-and-a-half minutes," she replied.

He threw her a skeptical look, but by the look on her face, it was clear that she wasn't joking.

How could she have possibly built an entire ice palace in less than four minutes?

He was seriously beginning to question which of them was the teacher and which was the student.

Elsa lifted off the icy floor and began to float up the staircase on the right side of the room, and Jack followed her. When they reached the top, they passed through an archway that led to two more sets of stairs, both of which curved up and out of sight—one to the left and one to the right. They flew up the one to the left.

The steps ended at a room about half the size of the space downstairs. Even with those measurements, it was still cavernous.

Elsa stopped in the doorway and leaned against it. Jack figured that, for the moment, she would want to be alone with her memories, so he slid past her and looked around the room by himself.

The floor in the entire space seemed to be shaped like a snowflake, and as he looked at it more closely, he realized there _was_ a giant white ice star, imprinted beneath the glassy dark blue surface. The ceiling was see-through and luminescent, with an intricate snowflake pattern that was interrupted only by protrusion in the very center—a short cylinder with jagged spiked on the end, like something had been hanging there and had broken off.

At the far end of the room, two tall doors opened up to a wide semi-circular balcony. Spellbound, Jack walked out onto the open space, stopping at the glass-smooth railing. The unhindered view of the sun setting beyond the mountains was almost as captivating as the girl in the room behind him.

She drowned out every other conscious thought in his head until he couldn't see any detail of the scene before him. It was like he was looking at a multihued watercolor smudge.

He turned back toward the room, wanting to see the source of his distraction.

He stopped, his eyebrows pushing together.

Elsa was in the middle of the floor. She was on her knees with her head dropped down and her chin pressed against her chest, and her shoulders hung with obvious sadness. He walked silently forward and slid onto one knee, stopping in front of her. He placed his hand on the side of her face, willing her to meet his eyes. When she did, he saw that hers were filled with tears.

"Elsa, what's wrong?" he whispered.

"I—" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat before continuing. "I didn't think it would be this hard. Being back in this castle. Being back in this _room_."

He didn't want to ask, not when this was putting her in visible pain, but he knew he had to. "What happened here?"

She seemed to tremble as she took a deep breath and answered. "After Anna found out about my powers—at the same time everyone else in the kingdom did—I ran away. I went deep into the mountains and built this place. Then I locked myself away—at least, I thought I had. It didn't take Anna very long to find me.

"And she wasn't the only one who did."

Jack was surprised at the malice he heard in her last sentence, and even more surprised that she seemed to be directing it at herself.

He gently traced his thumb across her cheek. "Tell me."

A fresh tear rolled down her face and he wiped it away as she went on.

"When Anna found me, she'd told me that I'd accidentally frozen our entire kingdom, and I got so overwhelmed that I started another snowstorm. Anna got too close, and"—her voice dropped so low it was nearly inaudible—"my powers struck her heart. It eventually caused her to turn into solid ice, and if she hadn't sacrificed herself for me, she would have stayed that way, because…only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart." She said the words like she was reciting them from a page, and followed them up with a weary chuckle. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into his palm.

He wanted to take her into his arms and shield her from these memories, but he knew that her story wasn't finished. He didn't want her to feel like she had to hold anything back around him. He let his hand fall from her face and wrapped it around her fingers. She turned her hand upward and squeezed his.

She sniffed quietly and continued. "Not long after I drove Anna out of this place, Hans showed up with a group of men, to find me and bring me back. As it turned out, Hans hadn't been the only one there with the hidden motive of killing me. Two men with crossbows attacked me in this room, and I…I nearly killed them both." She looked utterly broken as she stared at the floor. "I saw a dark side of myself that day."

Jack shook his head, and Elsa looked up at him questioningly. He looked at her seriously and held her gaze. "Everyone has a dark side, and you'd have to be extremely lucky to never get the chance to see it. When I thought I watched Sandy die, I went postal on the man that killed him. Until that moment, I had no idea how low I would go. But I don't regret it. I'm stronger because of it, and you are too, you just can't see it yet. But you will."

Her eyes softened like melting snow and the corners of her lips curved upward. "Thank you."

And then she was kissing him.

Or maybe he'd been the one to initiate the kiss.

Ha, who cares? He was engaging in his new favorite pastime.

Kissing Elsa was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. After he became a Guardian, he'd never thought he'd meet anyone—and even then, he couldn't help but fear that all he'd be able to do was freeze a girl to death. Elsa was incredible, beautiful, and shared his body temperature. The worry of making her uncomfortable was non-existent, and he was able to focus on the fact that this amazing girl seemed to be choosing him.

The more he got to know her, the more he couldn't help but think that the Man in the Moon had brought Elsa to this particular time for a reason, though he wasn't quite sure what that reason was just yet.

He was having trouble focusing on any of those theories though, because the tip of her icy tongue was currently tracing itself along his upper lip.

He reached up and took her face in his hand, then asked her a question with this own tongue. She responded by opening her mouth and inviting him in. He didn't hesitate to accept, and his free hand went to her waist, tightening his grip when she gave him a half-sigh, half-moan.

A loud noise shattered the intense moment, forcing the two of them apart. Jack kept his hold on her waist but let his other hand drop as they exchanged a confused look and searched the room for the source of the sound.

Elsa's eyebrows dipped when her gaze centered over Jack's shoulder. "The doors to the balcony are closed."

"The wind?" Jack asked skeptically.

"One might call me the wind, if they want to deny their fear."

Jack froze. He knew that voice. After he'd thought that the Sandman was dead, that voice had haunted him.

Pitch.

He stood up quickly, dragging Elsa to her feet. He gripped his wooden staff with his free hand and nodded to Elsa to take hold of her own scepter. Her eyes looked grim as she picked it up off the ground. They stood back to back and waited for this new threat to arrive.

Jack tensed—and felt Elsa do the same—when the remaining open doors in the room slammed shut. What little light lingered in the sky outside the translucent roof was blotted out by a dark cloud. It swept across the ceiling like a plague.

Pitch's low voice seemed to echo from every side of the room. "Such a shame, Jack, that you should meet your soul mate now, when she has brought her own downfall—not to mention that she'll be bringing you down with her."

Elsa snorted. "I wouldn't count on that. Why don't you just show yourself?"

Pitch chuckled. "As you wish, my queen."

His tall shadowy form materialized out of the dark cloud above their heads. He descended silently, wearing a bone-chilling smirk. He touched down a few feet away from them, and Jack instinctively turned to face him full-on. Elsa did the same, and he held her hand tightly.

"How sweet," Pitch taunted. "Standing together in the face of nightmares. Unfortunately for you, I am not alone."

The two of them flinched against a sudden flare of light. A column of fire had appeared beside Pitch—a blazing cyclone centered on a single spot. It unraveled almost as quickly as it had appeared, and left something in its wake.

Standing there now was a man, nearly as tall as Pitch. His light-colored eyes were hardened with a wicked glint. The facial hair on his jaw was cleanly sculpted, and the dark brown color was somehow unsinged, despite just having been engulfed in flames.

Jack glanced at Elsa, and the look on her face told him exactly who this person was.

Hans.


End file.
